Volume V: Valid Passports, expired visas: Deportation

The Greatest of the Great is complete. We were away from the American-Germanic world of Garmisch, AFRC and Edelweiss all of it. It just seemed way too easy, as we finally closed our room door for the very last time. We even had a couple of friends stopping by to wish us a safe journey. One friend in particular (again no names) came by to say his good-byes by smoking weed by our room. We knew that was the sign for us to leave. Considering that all of us could have been busted along with our pot-smoking friend. "Chance nothing, we are leaving!" I said.


I had to admit that I was a bit nervous about this journey we were taking. Plus, upon leaving our job, Nate and I will automatically considered illegal immigrant, considering that our job in Germany was contracted through the U.S. Department of Defense. I worried that some German immigration officer would approach us, or more so me, and ask for our passports and possibly deport us back to the United States.



Finally, We arrived at the München Hauptbahnhof (Munich Central train station) and to continue further on our trip, we had to get some train ticket information and purchase a Euro Multiple Country Pass. Getting this rail pass was the final step of getting out of Germany. Attila suggested getting this eurorail pass, because of the low cost versus having to purchase a single train ticket over and over again. But, the pricing was also based on age. Basically anyone under 26 years of age could receive a discount. I was fucked! We told the Eurorail ticket agent that we were heading to Bayonne, France. With the connection through Paris, it cost me about €105.00 Euros! All tickets were purchased, I was already sweating from the cost. "I hope that we find a job real soon!"

During our train ride to Paris, we still had to deal with the culturally ackward Germans and their overly quiet nature, silence, boring, unfriendly and down right strange people of middle Europe. I hate to stereotype people, but I guess we wanted some openness, friendlier, positive, engaging, basically something typically Latin cultured. The ride was nothing to write home about, just plain flat fields, grassy hills, nothing! Attila provided entertainment with his ipod, luckly he had an awesome feature where he had mulitple mini-ear speakers, so we all can enjoy the music together. Though the train ride was eight hours long, it seemed like forever to get into France. I became more worried at anytime I saw a man dressed in offical uniform, but that fear was no longer as we crossed over into France.